Year: 2006

“huh” and “uh” are often confused. Let’s take a look at these two words from dictionary.com: huh used as an exclamation of surprise, bewilderment, disbelief, contempt, or interrogation. uh used to indicate hesitation, doubt, or a pause. ————– It’s too…

Only eight players have hit 20 or more triples in one season since 1945: 23 Dale Mitchell 1949 22 Snuffy Stirnweiss 1945 21 Lance Johnson 1996 21 Willie Wilson 1985 20 Cristian Guzman 2000 20 George Brett 1979 20 Willie…

(photo under creative commons license from dgphilli) Here’s all the stats the Cubs had leaders in for the 2006 season: SLG %: 9th-Ramirez .561 Total Bases: 8th-Ramirez 333 Homeruns: 9th-Ramirez 38 RBI: 6th-Ramirez 119 Extra Base Hits: 6th-Ramirez 80 Games:…

If I really pay attention to something and think about the noise, I will notice everything has these blue and red dots on it. Does anyone else see this sort of thing? As far as I can remember from when…

(photos under creative commons from (left to right) azote, bigman606, ktb, rdott_s, robbyt, and valerierenee ) The media is all over the people who camp out for days for a PS3. “Crazy!” they say. But think of it this way.…

Set aside the regular six-sided dice and try these replacements for dice. Coin Instead of playing monopoly with a regular set of dice, what if instead you played with just one coin? It would totally change the dynamic of the…

The past two days, I covered why the SOFA show in Chicago sucks, and why urban craft fairs rule. Now here’s a list of upcoming urban craft shows in Chicago. DIY Trunk Show Sat, November 18, 10am-4pm Pulaski Park fieldhouse…

(the owl is from renegadecraft.com Yesterday I covered why the huge S.O.F.A. show in Chicago is no longer an inspirational show. SOFA is a nice show, but when you compare it to the urban craft shows of Chicago, SOFA looks…

Background on SOFA: Chicago’s Navy Pier has a huge art show every year with 100 worldwide galleries showing off their sculptural art called S.O.F.A (Sculpture Objects Fine Art). In the past ten years that I’ve attended the show, it was…

My name is Matt. People often call me Mark or Mike. Ocassionally Max. Other names that get mixed-up: –Terry, Tracy –Erik, Aaron –Tom, Todd –Otis, Curtis What are some other name mixups?

I was about to leave Bloomington, Illinois, but I lost my keys. Luckily I had the $190 Loc8tor to find them. I drive home 130 miles to Chicago and use just one gallon of gas in my fancy “Witty Wheels”…

Professional voiceover artist, Larry Simon gave a talk on voice technique for the Chicago Area Podcasters Network at the Apple Store on November 7, 2006. Here’s some of my notes that I jotted down: Imagine your voice as an instrument.…

Looking for fun items to add to your wish list? You should check out my Amazon wish list, because it’s the coolest in the land. It’s got over 230 fun items ranging from: To find some of the greatest items…

Yesterday we looked at the five greatest words to connote great. But what about the greatest? Let’s take yesterdays words and put them into their superlative form: It’s fascinating to see that “most fun” takes off in August 2005. Crazy.…

some cool graphs on which letters are most popular in Scrabble and in the English languageScrabble’s letter distributions: Art or science?

Using Google trends here’s the five best words to describe something as cool: great, fun, cool, hip, interesting honorable mentions: funky, incredible, awesome, excellent Oh, I should mention that, “best” is bar none the highest. But it’s sooo off the…

Every self-respecting ninja will find this challenge mat very challenging! Karate Chop Challenge The flashing karate mat (38″ x 31-1/2″) includes cool sound effects and a sensei voice to guide you to ultimate power! After each workout, the sensei will…

The nine essential items every ninja needs from amazon.com: [asa]B0002GSK2C[/asa]A must have for any ninja, or ninja in training! And very comfortable. I have a pair of tabi socks already, but I like them so much that a second pair…

My girlfriend and I decided to be LEGO blocks for halloween. Here’s what I found online for LEGO costumes. Almost all of them are based on wearing a box. We both know from the past that is way too cumbersome.…

There’s 11 new artworks in unmoo’s ebay store. You can read his blog post about the AIN’T series. $3.00 each. What a deal!

Both the Rockford News Tower and Elgin Tower appear to have been built recently, however it’s amazing that they were both built just a few years after the Tribune Tower. Tribune Tower: 1922; News Tower: 1930; Elgin Tower: 1929 ————————-…

Sites like friendster, myspace and livejournal have you list interests. But there’s never enough room for everything. Here’s my growing master list of things I like. After making this list, I realized that this is a helpful list that I…

In the TV show “Lost,” there is a character called Mr. Eko who carves Bible verses into his Scripture stick. Here’s what they are (All translations are ESV version). Genesis 13:14 The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated…

We vote on Tuesday, November 7, 2006. There’s so much chatter on the news about the candidates, but all I want is a simple one-page chart that shows where they stand on the issues. So I made a chart with…

It costs about $98,157.89 to build/renovate one mile of bicycle path in Illinois. (There’s a total of 26.98 miles of trail to be built/renovated for a total cost of $2,648,300). Wow. $98,000 bucks per mile. Imagine lining up a row…

Presenting the gallery of yarn monsters!

(photo under creative commons license from kaptainkobold) Here’s some fun interjections for giving directive to go forward: –Go! –Green light! –Full steam ahead! –Pedal to the metal! –Heel to the steel! –Floor it! –Charge! –Attack! –Geronimo! Can you think of…

And why do we read left to right? When we face north, the sun moves the opposite direction–right to left. Look down at the earth’s north pole from above, the world spins counter clockwise. Yet our clocks spin clockwise. Baffling!

The following hula hoop advice from hooping.org: Many people try to move their hips in a circle with the hoop. This actually makes hooping much harder. Try this: put one foot in front of the other and just shift your…

Smackless definition: (adj) Spelled Pronunciation[smack-lis] Origin: Starting in 2005 Yahoo Fantasy Football allowed competitors to have “smack talk” appear by their team name. Smack is comments either boasting up oneself or against another team. When one of the teams don’t…

How easy is it for someone to jack a Segway? Considering that you can run faster than the top speed of a Segway, you can’t just jack one and ride off with it. The top speed of a Segway is…